Tuesday, October 14, 2014

We are a Liberal Nation

One of the strangest aspects
of political discussions these days is that the word "liberal" gets
tossed around as an insult. Some people even believe that calling someone a
liberal automatically wins an argument. They don't bother with facts, reason,
common sense, or compassion when a mindless insult is all they have.

As one famous liberal,
Martin Luther King, once said, "The arc of
the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." The
folks who use "liberal" as an insult would do well to learn an
important fact: At every significant moment in American history, the liberal
view has propelled our nation along that arc of justice.

Liberals brought us the
American Revolution while conservatives believed that we should remain subjects
of the British Empire instead of becoming an independent nation.

Liberals brought us a
unified American nation while conservatives believed that we should be a
grouping of separate, loosely connected states.

Liberals brought us the Bill
of Rights while conservatives believed that defining our rights as Americans
was redundant and unnecessary.

Liberals brought us an end
to slavery while conservatives believed that some people have the right to own
other human beings.

Liberals brought the right
to vote to working-class whites, women, and African-Americans while
conservatives believed that only property-owning white males should choose our
representatives.

Liberals brought us public
education for the improvement of our nation while conservatives believed that
education should be a product bought and sold like a commodity and reserved for
only a wealthy elite who can afford to be educated.

Liberals brought us the
National Park system while conservatives believed that the most beautiful
American lands should be sold to the highest bidder and enjoyed only by those
who could pay for admission.

Liberals brought us the job
programs that kept millions of Americans afloat during the Great Depression
while conservatives tried to repeal those programs and called them socialism.

Liberals brought us food,
workplace, and product safety while conservatives believed that there is an
acceptable level of preventable illness, accidents, and death to ensure maximum
corporate profit.

Liberals broke up monopolies
to protect small businesses while conservatives have always supported large
corporations that drive out mom-and-pop entrepreneurs.

Liberals brought us rural
electrification while conservatives believed that there wasn't enough profit in
bringing modern advances to parts of the nation that couldn't afford to
purchase them.

Liberals brought us freedom
from child labor while conservatives believed that there was nothing wrong with
corporations exploiting children at farms, factories, and other dangerous jobs.

Liberals brought us an
eight-hour workday, forty-hour workweek, and weekends while conservatives
believed that American workers should serve the unrelenting demands of their
corporate employers.

Liberals brought us the
minimum wage while conservatives believed that corporations should be able to
pay workers as little as they could possibly get away with.

Liberals brought us Social
Security to lift millions of aging Americans out of poverty while conservatives
didn't think the government should care whether or not people could survive
once they were too old for the work force.

Liberals brought us basic
civil and human rights for African-Americans, women, and gay people while
conservatives considered these basic rights to be special gifts that no one
deserved but white males.

Liberals brought us Medicare
and Medicaid to guarantee basic health care to senior citizens and the poor
while conservatives believed that health care should be a product that only
those wealthy enough to afford should be able to access.

Liberals brought us an
overall social safety net to protect our most unfortunate citizens while
conservatives dismissed anyone who wasn't financially successful as lazy or
irresponsible.

Liberals brought us the
opportunity for all Americans, including women, African-Americans, and gay
people, to serve their nation in the military while conservatives fought for
the discriminatory idea that serving our country should be a special privilege
reserved exclusively for white, male, heterosexuals.

When confronted with the
fact that liberals have always represented core American values, people
sometimes tell me that liberals might have been okay at some fuzzy point in the
distant past, but today's liberals hate American and are trying to destroy our
nation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Meanwhile, today's
conservatives continue to fight against those advances while promoting
regressive policies such as suppressing voters, creating the fiction of
corporate personhood, restricting reproductive choices, cutting education,
shredding the social safety net, shifting the tax burden even more to the
middle-class, keeping big-money corruption in politics, and waging unwarranted
full-scale wars.

Make Common Sense Common Again

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About the Book

Has the United States gone insane? Considering the political circus of recent years, the easy answer is “yes.” But John Sheirer looks deeper to identify the underlying confusion and show us the core American values that can overcome the insanity, let us laugh at ourselves, and find common sense solutions to our nation’s confusion. We don’t expect political commentary to come in the form of compelling literature, but Sheirer’s gentle wit, knowledge of the issues, compassion for his fellow humans, and highly tuned B.S. detector lift this book from being just another partisan rant to a literate and readable examination of our shared citizenship and humanity.

Praise for John Sheirer's Writing

"... an outlier of logic, reason, and humor in today's often murky and distracting political dialogue. John Sheirer gives entertaining and incisive views on media, policy, elections, and the compendium of issues facing Americans. He gets us refocused and inspired to follow the road to real progressive values." -- David Pakman, host of The David Pakman Show

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"In a political world cluttered with knee-jerk opinions and mindless punditry, John Sheirer is a refreshing alternative voice. He shows liberals how to defeat right-wing lies, not with demagoguery and hysterics, but with common sense wisdom and a neighborly style." -- Bill Scher, host of the Talk Me Down podcast

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"John Sheirer does a great job debunking right-wing propaganda and telling the fascinating story of America's real political majority--your normal-to-the-point-of-being-boring neighbors, friends, co-workers, and fellow churchgoers whose liberal agenda is strongly supported by most Americans." -- Driftglass, political blogger and co-host of The Professional Left Podcast

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“John Sheirer brings an everyman’s approach to any number of issues. Like reading your favorite comic strip first, John’s columns take priority over everything else on the Op-Ed page, always making sharp and compelling points without resorting to the sledgehammer techniques of others.” -- Bob Flaherty, Morning Host, WHMP-96.9 FM, 2014 New England Radio Personality of the Year, Author of novel Puff

About the Author

John Sheirer (pronounced Shy-er) is an award-winning teacher and author. His previous book on politics and current events, Tales of a Real American Liberal, gave rise to a very popular Facebook page by the same name where John posts political commentary that reaches hundreds of thousands of readers every day. At the local level, he writes a monthly column for his hometown newspaper, the Northampton, Massachusetts, Daily Hampshire Gazette (the 2015 New England Newspaper of the Year).
John is the author of many other books, including his delightful series of children’s picture books coauthored with his dog Libby. His previous books also include a creative writing idea book, What’s the Story?; a short story collection, One Bite; two memoirs, Loop Year: 365 Days on the Trail and Growing Up Mostly Normal in the Middle of Nowhere; and a public speaking guidebook, Shut Up and Speak!
John has taught English and communications at Asnuntuck Community College in Enfield, Connecticut, for more than two decades.